Destiny 2 Is Dead

Bungie have announced in a recent blog post that Destiny 2‘s final live service update will arrive on June 9. This brings to a close a 12-year journey for a shooter that never quite reached the lofty ambitions set out at launch, but nonetheless proved to be a defining release.

On a personal note, this is very saddening to me. I first picked up the game several years ago and loved what I found. The gunplay was addictive and the lore was not only deep but also engaging. The game also featured some of the best raids and dungeons I’ve ever experienced in any genre. They demanded a lot from players but this made their completion all the more satisfying. I mean…space wizards, what’s not to love?

However, I didn’t stick with it and returned after the New Light Experience was implemented. I was extremely shocked to find that the Red War campaign (the game’s original campaign on release) was gone as well as most of the content that I had purchased.

Within the past year I decided to pick up the game again and a couple of the expansions I’d missed. Sadly, it wasn’t something I could get into. The onboarding was frustrating and I needed to bounce around many YouTube videos to figure out what was going on after years away from the game. I hoped that this was something that would eventually be fixed but that day never came.

I do hope that this isn’t the end for the franchise, the recently released mobile game was okay from what I played, and I would love a dedicated single-player entry in the future.

Beyond Destiny, I’m also deeply concerned about the studio’s future. While Bungie has reiterated its commitment to Marathon, the reality is that the new extraction shooter is currently performing worse than Destiny 2 has on life support. With player numbers dwindling just months after launch, it leaves a massive question mark over whether the studio can successfully capture a new audience and head off the worrying financial state it now finds itself in.